If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties - someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad; if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
- John F. Kennedy

Monday, November 28, 2011

Now that Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News won their court case against the Fed and a group of the biggest U.S. banks called Clearing House Association LLC we now know just how much the our overlords got from the Fed while the rest of us saw our jobs and savings go away and the economy tanked..

Remember that Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke argued that revealing borrower details would create a stigma as investors and counter parties would avoid firms that used the central bank as lender of last resort.

The amount of money the central bank parceled was staggering. Including guarantees and lending limits the Fed committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system. Do the math and you will see that that is more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year. It dwarfs the Treasury Department’s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

All the while these SOB's were taking the equivalent of half of the U.S. GDP the were loudly whining and screaming about socialism and government involvement in the markets.

This revelation should make the average Joe insanely mad and disgusted, especially if they also reveal that nothing has changed at the "too big to fail" banks. They are still sucking billions out of the economy with shady, high risk deals and exotic debt instruments and not adding any real value. What happens during the next crisis? You know there will be one since nothing has changed.

You can also bet that they are laughing at us rubes because they know that we are going to re-elect their enablers next year and the party will continue.

Friday, November 25, 2011

The holiday is over and I am getting ready to head out and face the crowds on Black Friday. I work from 9a to 6p and there are quite a lot of good offers in the brochure...especially tools and appliances. Hopefully it won't be too insane and I will emerge unscathed but I am not looking forward to the next 9 hours. I can hope that most of the crazy shoppers will have done their shopping before I go on at 9.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

A Happy Thanksgiving to all! Everyone have a safe wonderful day. Going to be low key here at Chez Monk since it will just be Madam and I. Since Madam has no love for turkey it will be a slow cooked Boston butt brined in Winter Spices (black pepper, allspice, bay, cardamom, coriander, juniper berries) along with sweet potatoes, cornbread dressing, butter peas, etc.. and, of course, pumpkin pie with whipped cream.
We've started out with buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup and bacon for breakfast so we are on the road for a feast day.
I hope your feast, whether traditional or not is full of fun. Since I have to work 9a to 6p tomorrow I also need to rest up for Black Friday which I am fearing will be a madhouse. Cheers to all!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

I was a huge fan of her work and cherish the time I spent with her wonderful fiction. I've read all the Pern books numerous times and most of her other works multiple times as well. I would be hard pressed not to call her my favorite.

May the Goddess watch over her and she find her way to the Summerlands.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

The whole police/thugs response to the various OWS demonstrations around the country have, for weeks, depressed and saddened me. The incident at UC Davis has moved me beyond sad and angry into heartbroken. I keep asking myself how my America got to where this could happen...on a college campus no less, and then I remember Kent State. The same shock and horror. The sad reality is that this whole incident and to a large degree the whole OWS phenomenon reflects the deterioration of America.
I'm just waiting for assault charges to be brought against Officer Pike and his buddies.

It's going to be somewhat quiet around these parts as I am working everyday for a week. We are now being scheduled by a computer and the first two weeks suck big time. I have multiple days where I have only a four hour shift which really shoots a day without much reward. Maybe it will get better.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

I awoke to the "blue screen of death" this morning. Everything was fine when I went to bed. I ran the diags and the HD just said "fail" number 7 and I couldn't get any further.
I got in the car and went to Fry's and now have a new Dell XPS 8300. I couldn't believe it but it comes standard with an I5 core processor, 6GB of memory and a 1Tbyte HD plus a 1GB video card. Way more PC than I need but it was still half the price of my old one.
Anyhow, long story short...my last backup was corrupt...not good. So I am faced with starting over. I have taken the old HD over the "Geek stop" and they are going to try and transfer my data to my external drive but in the meantime I am going to try and do what I can to get somewhere normal.
What kind of irritated me was that even though the new box comes with Windows 7 it comes with a crippled copy of Word and Excel and no Outlook. I had to spend another 250 bucks to get MS Office Home and Business really just for Outlook. As much as I use Word I could probably get along but Outlook standalone was $149 all by itself so what the hell. Yeah, I know there are open products just as good but....

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I meant to give credit for the video in the previous post to Balloon Juice but I hit publish to quickly. Anyhow, I spent part of my day off yesterday building some planter boxes out of cedar (35"x20"x6") that will fit on my greenhouse tables. I have been growing lettuce, spinach, roquette, etc. in small seed starter trays and while it works the plants get root bound and too crowded very quickly. I am thinking these little planters will allow a better environment and I should get better production. I only made three(my calculations caused me to be short by one 8' board. These came out pretty well so I'll get two or three more 6 inch cedar boards while I am work today and whip out two more as I would like to grow some radishes, green onions and maybe even some beets as well. I finished up the boxes last night and filled them with soil and this morning I got the new crop planted. In a few weeks I'll know if this plan is workable but it looks nice in the greenhouse. The other thing the added mass of soil will help on is watering. With the small containers you had to stay on top of the watering just about every other day.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Can we have that asteroid that passed by on Tuesday make another pass and this time not miss? I just read that Newt is now the front runner in the GOP clown car race. Maybe it's indigestion or just a bad dream.

I got a day off, two actually, but today's was consumed with leaves, lots of leaves. Got both the front and back done and all the leaves moved to the garden and spread about. An acre of trees makes a lot of leaves. The rest of the afternoon is chill....I just have to figure out if it will be a martini chill or a wine chill. Then again we can start with a martini and transition to wine. Madam has begun the decorating for Xmas at the historic homes so she will be scarce for the next week or two. I'll just have to entertain myself.

Friday, November 11, 2011

I purchased the final Harry Potter flick today which I haven't seen. Tonight I will and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed all the books and films. JK Rowling deserves what she has gotten for creating such epic and wondrous world. We can always use more magic in our lives.

Don't want to let the day pass without acknowledging the sacrifices made my fellow veterans both living and not. Some laid their lives down in their service and some lost limbs or suffered wounds that haunt them all the years of their lives. Some, like me, did their service and emerged unscathed. All of us, however, were changed and all of us are proud to have served.
Thanks to all the men and women who have served and all that are serving. It was an honor to serve with you.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Sorry it has been so quiet around these parts but life is crowding me lately. Still have the remnants of the cold from hell...nagging cough and some head congestion. I've done everything I can think of ....doubled up on "C" added zinc and all the rest but still not 100%. Like I mentioned I've been scheduled for the outside garden pretty much exclusively for the last week(and again today) and I imagine that hasn't helped. Still doing the 6 hour shifts for some reason which suck.

On another note I have been just amazed at the political theater going on. I guess last night's debate will see the beginning of the end for Mr. Perry. so that's going to leave the GOP with "look how many women haven't accused me of assault" pepperoni man and "Don't worry about what I stand for today as it will change tomorrow" Romney to fight it out. Neither has a chance to win the election over Obama so I guess we should just enjoy the show. It has been nice not to see "moosewoman's" name in the news lately so thank the Goddess for small favors.

The recent voting had some progressive goodness as well. Mississippi voters actually demonstrated some sanity and the voters in Arizona toasted their racist Senator big time. Ohio voters shoved the overreaching governor's union busting zeal right where the sun never shines and that was a good thing.

I guess the next thing we have to look forward to is the epic failure of the "Super Committee" and then we get to watch the GOP try and undo all the forced cuts that result. McCain and Graham are already trying to make sure that war mongering is fully funded going forward.

We are supposed to get our first freeze tonight. We have had one light frost so far but we might see 30F tonight. There are still a bunch of peppers in the garden that should be picked today but I am out of time.

Off to work in a bit so you guys have fun out there. When things are quiet I can keep up my reading on the smart phone but posting is another issue. They were beginning to set up for the Xmas tree sales yesterday so that looks to be in my immediate future. I was there for it last year and it wasn't fun.

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

I think I am recovered enough to go to work this evening(430-1030) we'll see. Still a bit rough around the edges but walking upright. For some reason they have been giving me 6 hour shifts which means no lunch break and only two fifteen minute breaks. Makes for a long haul. I have drugs if required. Hopefully, I will be inside tonight but tomorrow I am scheduled for the outside garden center. Oh boy!